Reefs & wrecks

Dive sites in Hurghada

Every site we have mapped around Hurghada, Egypt — search, filter and explore them on the map.

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1–12 of 36 sites

Aruk Talata

Aruk Talata, also written Shaab Talata, is two ergs standing on sand at 9 to 12 m, and the main reef between them holds little. The dive that makes the site is the one that keeps going: holding a straight line out between the ergs brings a small coral formation into view after a few minutes, with a second one further along the same bearing. Both are considerably busier than the ergs they sit behind.

AdvancedPinnacles

Reef25 m

Carless Reef

Hurghada5.0

Carless Reef rises steeply out of deep water as two large pinnacles ringed by a flat coral garden, with a gentle slope on one side that turns into a vertical wall dropping straight into open water. The reef stands clear of everything around it, and the current running onto it delivers the food that supports the density of life on top.

AdvancedWall

Reef12 m

El Erug

Hurghada

El Erug is not one reef but a field of coral pinnacles scattered across sand north of Gota Abu Ramada, and the number of them is what shapes the dive. Three separate clusters hold around twenty-five ergs between them, all built to the same pattern and all looking alike from 12 m, which is why boats treat the area as a single site while divers routinely lose track of which cluster they are on.

BeginnerNight dive

Reef25 m

El Fanadir North

Hurghada4.0

El Fanadir North is a long sloping wall with a shallow lagoon behind it and coral blocks standing on the sand alongside. What runs through the whole site is cleaning: stations follow one another along the foot of the wall almost without a break, which is why animals that are otherwise difficult to approach hold still here.

AdvancedWall

Reef25 m

El Fanadir South

Hurghada3.0

El Fanadir South is the southern end of a long, narrow reef running north of Hurghada, and what sets it apart is a food chain built on pipefish. They are abundant here to an unusual degree, and the ambush predators that eat them are abundant to match: if there is one site in the area to go looking for a stonefish, this is it. A hard coral wall slopes at around 60 degrees to a sandy ledge at 12 m, some 50 m wide and narrowing as it runs north before dropping away at 20 to 25 m. Four low rocky islets mark the east side.

Advanced

Wreck30 m

El Minya

Hurghada4.5

El Minya was an Egyptian minesweeper, hit by Israeli aircraft in 1970 and sunk just outside the harbor entrance. She lies on her port side with the bow at 25 m and the stern at 32 m, and the highest point of the wreck, at 17 m, is the torn plating around the blast hole where the bomb went in. Machine-gun holes from the same attack run through the hull beside it.

AdvancedDrift

Reef18 m

Erg Abu Ramada

Hurghada

Erg Abu Ramada, also called Camel Reef, stands off the southeast side of Abu Ramada Island as a single large erg with three peaks rising from a plateau. The currents that make it awkward to dive are the reason it remains in the condition it does: strong water movement and an exposed position have kept traffic down and the coral intact. Sand surrounds the base and gives way to a coral garden toward the north.

AdvancedWall

Reef12 m

Erg Sabina

Hurghada

Erg Sabina is a compact reef standing on flat sand at 10 to 12 m, with coral blocks and table corals scattered around its base. It sits in the Giftun Strait, and the narrowing of that channel governs the diving: water forced through it can run hard, and the fish gather on the north face where they can hold station in the flow. It shares a mooring with Shaab Sabina: the boat does not move between the two, and the names describe which way the group turns off the line.

AdvancedDrift

Reef60 m

Erg Somaya

Hurghada

Erg Somaya sits immediately north of the police station on Small Giftun, where the vertical wall below the island flattens into a shelf. An erg rises off that shelf to within 5 m of the surface, and further north the shelf gives out and the wall resumes, steeper, with two coral towers standing clear of it.

AdvancedWall

Reef27 m

Fanous East

Hurghada

Fanous East takes its name from the fanous, the beacon standing on the crest of the main reef. Below it a shallow vertical face drops onto gently sloping sand scattered with coral formations and a pair of substantial pinnacles. East and West are dived from the same mooring: the boat does not move between the two, and the names describe which way the group turns off the line.

Expert

Reef14 m

Fanous West

Hurghada

Fanous West is a shallow reef wall running along flat sand, with a narrow channel leading through to a lagoon 9 m deep and a coral garden sloping away to 14 m. A handful of ergs and pinnacles stand off to the west. East and West share a mooring: the boat stays put between the two dives, and the names describe which way the group turns off the line.

BeginnerWall

Reef15 m

Gota Abu Galawa

Hurghada

Gota Abu Galawa is one of six sites making up the Abu Galawa complex north of Hurghada, alongside Abu Galawa, Shaab Abu Galawa, Sakhwat Abu Galawa, Habibi Abu Galawa and Marsa Abu Galawa. The name places it within that group: gota is the local word for a coral head standing clear of the main reef, so the diving here is on isolated structure rather than along a wall.

All levels